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Newbies Questions to T2 Dungeon Metagame
lamminatboden
Member Posts: 51 Arc User
Hi everyone,
I'm reached Level 60 some weeks ago. Since then, my friends and I had a lot of fun with Gauntlgrym and Epic Dungeons. There seems to be some kind of metagame to the higher dungeons. Most people act like everyone knows this, but as a matter of fact, we new players don't. I searched through the forums, tried to ask people ingame and watched some youtube videos, but it's still hard to get a good grasp of what is going on. Since people were a great help in the past here, I thought I ask my question in the forum
.
First some experiences I made. My girlfriend and a friend of ours played all normal dungeons together with our 3 chars: GF, TR and CW. Our TR was a bit higher leveled, and once she hit the minimum level requirement of a dungeon (and we other two were still underleveled), we enter the dungeon manually and had a lot of fun fighting our way through the dungeon and defeating the final boss after half a dozen trys, hundreds of potions and at least 2 hours.
When we hit Level 60, we were earger to do the epic dungeons. The T1 dungeons went well. They were tough, but doable. As a GF I still could tank up the minions and be extremly useful. And I couldn't understand why people were always talking about "GF is useless".
Then we went on to T2 dungeons. We managed to complete some of them, but I was starting to see what people were talking about. I couldn't tank the minions anymore, all I could do is kite them around, which could be done by a cleric or gwf as well. Still, the extra threat generation proved to be extremly useful, since I only had to hit an add once to get his attention away from my allies.
We've beaten Frozen Heart, Lair of the Pirate King, Spellplaque Caverns and Cavern of Karrundax so far. In Temple of the Spider we managed to reach the final boss with only 4 people without cleric (I love kicking stuff over edges :P), but got wpied there instantly of course. I imagine Dread Vault to be doable, since you can push stuff over there, too. But I was wondering how to do Temple of the Spider, Castle Never, Malaborgs Castle and Valindras Tower.
I watched YouTube Videos, and they all seem to contain groups with only DCs, Cws and TRs. The metagame seems to be to take 1-2 TR to dps the boss down, 1-2 Clerics to keep the group alive and fill up the rest with CWs. I do have to say that in the videos the party always had to work perfectly together, keeping close enough to the cleric to keep them alive and the CWs had to chain their spells perfectly.
Question 1: Metagame?
Is this really the Metagame? Do groups with GFs and GWFs even work in those high tier dungeons?
Question 2: Is it possible to complete those dungeons by using the queue?
Is it even possible to complete those 4 mentioned dungeons with GWFs or GFs? Because if you use the queue and don't go in with a team of five, you will be usually matched with 5 different classes. I've seen videos with GFs, but they still had 2 Clerics and/or 2 CW, which usually doesn't happen in a random queue (and in the video they were of course a premade party). Do you always need such a CW heavy group or 2 Clerics? Will we ever be able to do the final bosses in those dungeons with our TR, GF and CW party queueing up? So far it didn't look good, although we'll certainly give it more trys.
Question 3: Astral Shield Stacking
I always read, that "everyone knows how broken astral shield stacking is". I think astral shield is the blue circle that heals you up (and reduces incoming damage?), which always proved quiet useful. So does stacking mean you put two circles over each other and their effects add up and the adds can't kill you anymore? Or does it mean you cast them in succession so that there is always at least one circle present? Why is this strategy so broken? I died lots of times despite astral shield. And it forces you to stay in a small radius, which means that some boss attacks that immediately kill you are harder to dodge?
Question 4: Need or greed
There seems to be somekind of convention to roll on greed for epic loot. I personally do not understand this. I do Epic Dungeons to get the T2 equip. What sense does it make if the TR gets my GF item and I can his TR item? If everyone rolls on greed, everyone will need 5 times as much dungeons to get their equip together. Since I know this convention now, I warn people I'm rolling for need and they should too.
It makes no sense, beacuse statistically everyone will still get the same amount of loot (maybe classes that are overrepresented will get a tiny bit less, but thats not worth that nobody gets his equip).
So why this convention? What's the idea behind that?
Questsion 5: Defense cap at 50%?
This question is a bit unrelated, but I couldn't find any good sources for it. I just heard there is a cap and my defense didn't go past 50% yet. There are diminishing returns, so why would you cap it? It's not possible (or maybe that's one reason why it is not) to tank adds in T2 dungeons anyways. Would it be imbalanced in pvp? With all the armor penetration people are building (as I understand it is the most popular offensive stat?) I hardly think so.
If this cap really exists, it would be very unfortunate, since I do have quiet a few offensive items, but still hit the cap easily before my T2 set is even completed.
Question 6: How can a GF be useful?
Of course I'd love some advice (apart from "make a new character with different class") on how to be useful in those high tier epic dungeons. I still don't have any enchantments, which one should I get for my armor and weapon enchants?
Thanks in advance!
I'm reached Level 60 some weeks ago. Since then, my friends and I had a lot of fun with Gauntlgrym and Epic Dungeons. There seems to be some kind of metagame to the higher dungeons. Most people act like everyone knows this, but as a matter of fact, we new players don't. I searched through the forums, tried to ask people ingame and watched some youtube videos, but it's still hard to get a good grasp of what is going on. Since people were a great help in the past here, I thought I ask my question in the forum
.First some experiences I made. My girlfriend and a friend of ours played all normal dungeons together with our 3 chars: GF, TR and CW. Our TR was a bit higher leveled, and once she hit the minimum level requirement of a dungeon (and we other two were still underleveled), we enter the dungeon manually and had a lot of fun fighting our way through the dungeon and defeating the final boss after half a dozen trys, hundreds of potions and at least 2 hours
.When we hit Level 60, we were earger to do the epic dungeons. The T1 dungeons went well. They were tough, but doable. As a GF I still could tank up the minions and be extremly useful. And I couldn't understand why people were always talking about "GF is useless".
Then we went on to T2 dungeons. We managed to complete some of them, but I was starting to see what people were talking about. I couldn't tank the minions anymore, all I could do is kite them around, which could be done by a cleric or gwf as well. Still, the extra threat generation proved to be extremly useful, since I only had to hit an add once to get his attention away from my allies.
We've beaten Frozen Heart, Lair of the Pirate King, Spellplaque Caverns and Cavern of Karrundax so far. In Temple of the Spider we managed to reach the final boss with only 4 people without cleric (I love kicking stuff over edges :P), but got wpied there instantly of course. I imagine Dread Vault to be doable, since you can push stuff over there, too. But I was wondering how to do Temple of the Spider, Castle Never, Malaborgs Castle and Valindras Tower.
I watched YouTube Videos, and they all seem to contain groups with only DCs, Cws and TRs. The metagame seems to be to take 1-2 TR to dps the boss down, 1-2 Clerics to keep the group alive and fill up the rest with CWs. I do have to say that in the videos the party always had to work perfectly together, keeping close enough to the cleric to keep them alive and the CWs had to chain their spells perfectly.
Question 1: Metagame?
Is this really the Metagame? Do groups with GFs and GWFs even work in those high tier dungeons?
Question 2: Is it possible to complete those dungeons by using the queue?
Is it even possible to complete those 4 mentioned dungeons with GWFs or GFs? Because if you use the queue and don't go in with a team of five, you will be usually matched with 5 different classes. I've seen videos with GFs, but they still had 2 Clerics and/or 2 CW, which usually doesn't happen in a random queue (and in the video they were of course a premade party). Do you always need such a CW heavy group or 2 Clerics? Will we ever be able to do the final bosses in those dungeons with our TR, GF and CW party queueing up? So far it didn't look good, although we'll certainly give it more trys.
Question 3: Astral Shield Stacking
I always read, that "everyone knows how broken astral shield stacking is". I think astral shield is the blue circle that heals you up (and reduces incoming damage?), which always proved quiet useful. So does stacking mean you put two circles over each other and their effects add up and the adds can't kill you anymore? Or does it mean you cast them in succession so that there is always at least one circle present? Why is this strategy so broken? I died lots of times despite astral shield. And it forces you to stay in a small radius, which means that some boss attacks that immediately kill you are harder to dodge?
Question 4: Need or greed
There seems to be somekind of convention to roll on greed for epic loot. I personally do not understand this. I do Epic Dungeons to get the T2 equip. What sense does it make if the TR gets my GF item and I can his TR item? If everyone rolls on greed, everyone will need 5 times as much dungeons to get their equip together. Since I know this convention now, I warn people I'm rolling for need and they should too.
It makes no sense, beacuse statistically everyone will still get the same amount of loot (maybe classes that are overrepresented will get a tiny bit less, but thats not worth that nobody gets his equip).
So why this convention? What's the idea behind that?
Questsion 5: Defense cap at 50%?
This question is a bit unrelated, but I couldn't find any good sources for it. I just heard there is a cap and my defense didn't go past 50% yet. There are diminishing returns, so why would you cap it? It's not possible (or maybe that's one reason why it is not) to tank adds in T2 dungeons anyways. Would it be imbalanced in pvp? With all the armor penetration people are building (as I understand it is the most popular offensive stat?) I hardly think so.
If this cap really exists, it would be very unfortunate, since I do have quiet a few offensive items, but still hit the cap easily before my T2 set is even completed.
Question 6: How can a GF be useful?
Of course I'd love some advice (apart from "make a new character with different class") on how to be useful in those high tier epic dungeons. I still don't have any enchantments, which one should I get for my armor and weapon enchants?
Thanks in advance!
Post edited by lamminatboden on
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Comments
It's possible for any combination of characters to complete any dungeon. There's been several videos of GWF only teams doing CN on the forums recently. In fact GWFs can be very good in dungeons. It's more about how well you know your class, how well you know the dungeon, and how well you play as a team.
GFs are the least popular class right now as they don't do very good damage and don't really have any control/debuf abilities either. You're going to have a lot of trouble finding good games with a GF unless you join a guild.
The chances of finding a good team using the queue system are very low. You are much better off finding a game in the looking for group channel, or joining a guild.
Astral shield no longer stacks, it was changed some time ago in a patch.
If you need an item (meaning you plan to use it on the character you are playing) then, unless your team has agreed to a greed run, you should vote need. The only exception is the last boss on castle never, people typically do greed runs or split runs here so that everybody has an equal chance of making a profit.
Most people will vote need on any non-class specific items, but you can always wait and see what other people vote first before voting.
I'm not aware of a cap, but I may be wrong. Defense has diminishing returns though.
To be honest the GF is not a particularly useful class in most situations. There are some cases where a GF can be usefull, for example kiting the adds at the lass boss on frozen heart.
I'm sorry to tell you but most teams stack wizards and GWFs to clear the content as fast as possible.
The efficient metagame is to stack CW perhaps with some support classes. A DC and/or a GF can provide great buffs, and a GWF or two can be taken to provide a solid 'front-line' with good DPS. But 3-5 CW parties clearing CN and other top tier dungeons are pretty much the default now.
The only other class that can successfully stack and do higher end dungeons is the GWF, and it is much better at this than the remaining classes, although far behind the CW.
Yes, but the random queue is a pretty dicey. You are much better off joining a channel (I use /Legit) or a guild and using parties formed there.
Thought this was fixed waaaaayyyyy back?
It a bad implementation of a good idea. Lots of 'Guild' or 'Channel' groups run on an honour basis where everyone just greeds. In a PUG I tell everyone to just 'NEED' right from the start to stop anyone being able to 'ninja' at the last minuete. If you write it out like that at the very start most people will be fine with it.
Sort-off. Certain buffs, etc can push this to 80% but anywhere near 50% is realtively good to get to. As a GF (or even GWF) for PvE I wouldn't worry about this issue at all.
Get into a guild or a channel, get the Knight's Captain's set and go for DPS as you already have survivability. KC gives a huge buff to the rest of the team, and is always welcomed by anyone with the slightest knowledge of the game.
Err, also if you insist on a melee class (so a CW is out), a GWF might not be a bad idea. *ducks*
The rest of the stuff posted by kobrakai2 is pretty much spot on, but this is somewhat misleading.
All CW and even all GWF parties have done top tier dungeons, but never to the best of my knowledge all DC, GF or HR parties.
TR is in a special position as it has the stealth mechanic and so can usually sneak past or wear down enemies in a dungeon (ab)using permastealth. This can be very slow though....
1. Metagame:
In every MMO there is a metagame and it changes, although in this one CWs have been in the top of the ladder since open beta because of the dessign of the dungeons (adds heavy). Right now the meta for low-medium geared parties (like yours seems to be) is 2 CW, GWF, DC and a free slot for whatever class (GFs as lower the level, or in FH). In high GS parties the Meta is any combination of CWs and GWFs and if they dont feel like wasting money on pots a DC.
2. Yes its possible but almost always disgraceful and annoying, you find the kind of people who is not social enough to even use the lfg channel or even joining a guild, mostly people who can't understand english or refuse to comunicate ingame, really really not desiderable, avoid random queue as much as possible.
3. Astral shield stacking was a problem in open beta, 1 year ago, probably searching videos on youtube can give you that kind of results, it was fixed arround may-june iirc.
4. Need or Greed, well mconosrep answer is pretty spot on, do need runs till you are geared then greed runs, is the best path.
5. There is no cap in defense, or damage reduction, but diminishing returns start somewhere in the 3300 and hit hard at 3600.
6. I main a GF, first of all, specc your toon for Max threat generation, good spec is almost all in any class, then farm a Knight's capitain set, buff's your party dps of the charts, and invest in movement to be less of a burden in terms of party speed.
Now, as a gameplay, you seem to play with friends and then all is easier and better, get first agro of the packs of monstars, just run to them using into the fray to start the battle and treatening rush to mark the whole pack, enforced threat to grab as many mobs as possible and become a "walking singularity", and get the party the easy task to aoe the whole pack with combat advantage and without problems of agro, use either villains menace/fighters recovery as dailies, in boss fights ask your CW to cast singularities on your head while you tank the boss AND the adds, using the same encounters, and ocassional threatening rush to mark everything, only block attacks that either stun/prone you or will kill you, the others suck it up and move away of the big/slow boss animations.
I know what it is you're really asking for here...
You want to know what all this stuff ACTUALLY means vs what the game tells you it means, and that's fair.
Nothing really wrong here with your base crew.
But I'm sure you've figured out by now the ACTUAL dungeons are based on AoE encounters, and what you have here are two single target classes and one AoE class going through dungeons. But all of the above classes function and do what they're intended to do. The GF can tank really well. The TR can dish out some pretty good single target damage. And the Mage can do some pretty wicked damage.
Well actually you can Tank well, the real problem is that most of the end boss mobs in T2 Dungeons don't need to be tanked. They sit back and throw things from Range and never bother to actually smack you around.
This is what they really mean when they say GFs generally aren't needed. Or there's just too many mobs coming at you that is hard for you to maintain agro. The reality is, the GF can tank really well. Or the opposite as you found out in Spider Queen with the Blade Masters they can break your shield in one round of attacks. But you CAN actually take a pummeling and survive unlike everyone else. So you end up relegated to crowd control.
The GWFs generally end up doing your job as they don't have to worry about being hit REALLY REALLY HARD. And they do pretty massive short range AoE melee damage allowing them to lock down agro of anything in their immediate area.
Spider Queen: The only successful way I've done this one in the arena area is with 2 GWFs, 2CWs and one DC. The GWFs ran directly at the Queen keeping her between the Chest and them, the two CWs an the DC placed themselves Between the GWFs and the wall. They GWFs kept spamming their knockdowns and rage. The two CWs traded off using their Singularities to bring everything stacked on the GWFs and using Steal Time to basically keep the mobs Stunned, and Launching their Shards of Endless Avalanche into the pile to prone them and Sudden Storms to cause massive AoE damage. Everyone is in Tight formation we're talking within 5-10 feet of the GWF melee pile. The two GWFs were never in trouble. No mobs touch the Mages while they deal massive AoE damage, and it is a very fast fight. I have attempted this with GFs but they have never been as successful as the GWF combo.
Shockingly the one place you should shine, GFs don't really. You cannot keep all those mobs off your own party as it intended for a tank.
That is the reality on the ground.
Actually you can do pretty well in Castle Never, but the two GWF combo will likely have faster results. The massive waves of mobs are better handled by the 2 GWF combo and CWs combo. That crew just burns through it. Again its because its an all AoE style encounter area, not single target massive melee damage to the tank type.
Also you can really shine in Malabog's Castle especially during the Dragon fight. It allows the rest of the team to keep their eyes open for Valindra who comes in every now and then and reeks havoc on everything. If someone can hold the Dragon, everyone else is able to deal with Valindra's portal summoning and Choke moves while tossing damage at the Dragon.
Valindra's Tower, well there no one needs a Tank as she doesn't melee and doesn't bother. So Damage becomes the key. As she does pretty much the same things as she did in the Dragon Fight in Malabog's Castle, but instead of the Choke move she has a Bigby's Crushing Hand move. But the fights are similar, minus the Dragon. And you as a Tank cannot stop her from summoning anything or even bash her and stop her hand move. So there's not much you contribute to this one. Speed is usually the key in this one as everyone has to get to the outside to hit F key and destroy the coffins when she summons them. Or have to cause massive damage on her Summoned Hand to break someone free.
Damage really becomes the key in many of the End boss fights as none of their actual moves that cause you problems can be disrupted by your shield bash. If it could, then you might have a better place, but as it stands damage becomes the key not taking damage as none of the boss mobs play to the strengths of the GF.
I wouldn't take those two seriously. Those are mostly just uber overgeared players showing off. While its true it takes a great deal of skill to achieve that kind of thing on TOP of overgearing, not everyone can do those kinds of things.
GWFs yes... very well, and in all of them with perhaps the exception of Dread Vault Tier 2.
Dread Vault T2 a non melee team works better on the end boss. But that one is all about crowd control. The Thune Hulks are just too overwhelming for anyone to withstand really, the suck and smash move is deadly and catches the entire party in it. Making Tanking is kinda useless. So they have to be Choked, Frozen, Stunned, and preferably thrown over the edge as fast as possible. And if you melee you're too close to the brain, not close enough to the edge to allow that to happen. I even watched a 2 GWF, 2CW, 1DC team get crushed in there.
Honestly a 2CW/2HR/1DC team works best on that. OR a 3CW/1HR/1DC team. The crowd control required on this one literally means you may want 3 CWs going all out crowd control. The HRs can nail the Brain from far away and the CWs will be Singularity/Push/Repel/Entangle/Chill Strike over the edge for the adds. And its fought in the far back corner just like the T1 version.
But the rest of them the GWF is very good at. GF, well you'll survive easy, but most don't make use of your skills or abilities, and may not contribute as much to the survival of your party the way you want to.
Depends on which one.
Different ones require different types of parties to be able to succeed at. While you can still succeed with a standard party, the chances of doing so are much lower than other configurations. The Queue designs things as a standard party without taking into account how the tactics of the dungeons are set up. Hence, it can in the upper tier level dungeons set you up in a party that has a worse chance of succeeding. The dungeons while queuing you in a standard party, are actually set up to work best with NON standard D&D parties.
Well first of all NEED gets the item outright over and above anyone who hits GREED.
So its not actually possible for them to do what you're talking about. If no one else hits Need. Then it goes to the highest roll in the Greed side.
In high end runs where everyone is geared and farming dungeons for items to sell on the AH, they will do and agree on what are called GREED runs. Where no matter what class you are, you hit Greed on the Purple/EPIC items and basically all agree to roll for them. It is a serious Faux Pas to hit need in a Greed Run party and can cause you to never be allowed into one again.
So remember to ask, or when you hear people say this, remember it.... because it does matter.
I didn't know about channels besides the default ones. I will definitly look into this and try to find out how it works, thanks.
Ok, Knights Captains set... I'm almost done with my Gauntlgrym PvE set and also working on a PvP set, but I will look into it this set after it. I guess KC means Knight Challenge? I challenge the boss so it deals less damage to my allies? And Into the Fray has been mentioned multiple times. I see the usefulness of the run and AP gain bonus. I used Enhanced Mark, Frontline Surge and Lunging Strike/Iron Warrior so far, to gain aggro of mobs and be able to survive them.
Yes
I welcomed the change, that Frontline Surge and Enforced Threat now hit more targets. It was frustrating not to be able to pull mobs from my allies in i. e. FH or SC, because there were 20 mobs clumping around me. I still don't understand why it has to be capped at all. Would GFs be imbalanced with that and deal way too much AoE damage? I don't really see it...
.
I was hoping we could do all the dungeons with our little 3 man group. But it makes sense to adapt to the dungeon. I feared that already and I've started a cleric already. Maybe if our other friends get to 60 as well (or we meet more nice people ingame), we can do a full party attempt on an epic dungeon
The Need-Greed thing is now clear too.
Thanks everybody!
Bu KC I actually meant Knight Captain's set. (Knight's Challenge is also a decent encounter of course.)
Basically Tier 1s you can be an 'aggro' tank, but in Tier 2s and higher this is near pointless and you are better off going the buff/DPS route.
Also, as has been said before, it looks like you've been watching some very out of date videos, with Astral Shield stacking having been eliminated in Open Beta and GWFs being welcome in parties since December, mostly taking the place of a TR.
That is some very useful advice, thanks.
Looks like - that's why i came here, to clarify this kind of stuff. Which obviously worked pretty well!